Lady Rebel
by elphabathedelirious32
Summary: AU. Padme went with Anakin on Mustafar, ObiWan explained before he could choke her, and ObiWan was taken prisoner.
1. Prologue

A/N: This fanfiction is from an idea I keep having that continually bugs me and refuses to go away. It's rather annoying. So I've decided to shut it up (hopefully) by writing the fic already. Oh, and this isn't Obidala. Um, I'm sorry, but ew. That's just what I happen to think though.

Disclaimer: I don't own Star Wars. Is it me, or George Lucas, on the DVD extras? Exactly.

**Prologue**

**Mustafar**

**One Year Ago**

_"I can overthrow him, and we can rule the galaxy together, make things the way we want them to be!" _

_His eyes were shining, bright with fervent insanity, he fairly glowed with it. And his smile, oh, his smile, it was rapturous, filled with the joy of a child. Yet it cuts me deeper than any lightsaber ever could. He wanted me to answer, to pledge my loyalty, to be his empress- doesn't he know me, at all? Me, the great lover of democracy. Me, the great dissenter. Me, the constant advocate of liberty, of justice- and then, my child, his child, kicked the wall of my belly- Me. The mother of this baby. _

_And I knew what my answer had to be. Every fiber of me screamed 'No!'_

_I had to say yes. But this, this I could not bring myself to do. So, instead, I force a brilliant smile to my face, force the rebellious, horrified, thoughts beneath a mask of happiness, because perhaps he could know my thoughts- and I rushed into the comfortable fortress of his arms. _

_When Obi-Wan descended, I nearly fainted from the shock. But then I felt Anakin stiffen beside me, thrust me away. _

"_No, Ani, I didn't know-" I stumbled over the words, could not find the eloquence that had supported me always before, and I waited, shocked into stillness, as he raised his hand to silence me forever- _

_But Obi-Wan, unexpectedly, saved me. _

"_No, Anakin, don't hurt her, she didn't know." Anakin paused. I should run, I knew, but my body would not obey. Obi-Wan continued, _

"_She hasn't betrayed you, Anakin. _I_ have betrayed you both. I came to her apartment to find out where you had gone, and she would not tell me, although I could tell she knew, and I knew she would go to you, to find out whether what I had told her of your deeds was true. So, I waited, and I snuck aboard her ship." He said all this as thought I were not here. Maybe I wasn't. Anakin looked at me, and I nodded mutely. I was not myself. I was incapable of speech. This house of cards was far too fragile. A single word from my mouth could destroy us all. But Obi-Wan was not finished. He went on, as though I were a doll that could not hear, or speak, or act of her own volition. As he spoke, a sudden, violent hatred rose in me. _

"_Padmé is brilliant," he said, but this angry me did not believe he spoke truthfully, "But she is far too trusting. She never checks the shadows behind her for threats. Such trust should be a gift, but in these times I am afraid it is too often a curse." _

Good, _I thought, _for I will not trust so easily again.

_Then, Anakin held me at arm's length. His gaze penetrated to the depths of my soul. I struggled to hide all traces of rebellion, to be the doll they spoke about, not to, so that he would not kill my baby. _

_This is what we do, for love. _

_Apparently satisfied, Anakin first released me, then held me to him fast, as in love, though I knew, or maybe just suspected, that it was really just so that I could not escape. He motioned with his other hand, and a strangled cry fills the air- is that me? _

_Hundreds of clone troopers came from nowhere. They swarmed Obi-Wan, taking him prisoner. And Anakin laughed. _

_Obi-Wan was a prisoner. _

_And so was I. _


	2. Duty

**A/N: Sorry I abandoned this story for so long. I just haven't had any good ideas. But now I do! **

**Disclaimer: Lucas owns it. I just write about it. **

A year later, and still they all treated me like a doll. I was so thoroughly sick of it, but still I could not protest overtly. They had Luke and Leia, you see.

This is why you do not fall in love. You do not have children. You do not make friends. You force yourself away from your family. Other people are the greatest weapons of war. _Love_ is the single most destructive tool in the hands of an enemy.

But what is life worth without it?

My life is worth nothing anyway. I am past caring about it. It is only Luke and Leia, and yes, I admit it, _Anakin_, that keep me from jumping out the nearest window on any given day.

He is still there. He must be. Were he not, were all traces of him gone entirely, I would know. I would.

I woke up to find him pacing by the window.

"What is it?" I asked, almost automatically. He tilts his head to look at me.

"I've laid out your clothes," he said, not answering me, "We've been _invited_ to dine with the Emperor this morning."

What a way to start the day.

None of them know what I am doing, secretly. Everyone is under suspicion- except for me. I was, of course, in the beginning, but thirteen years as a politician have made me a consummate actress. I can be broken, reluctant, accepting, obedient without flinching, except inwardly. I can act the part of myself, although I am not entirely she any longer. More importantly, I can act the part of myself in various situations. For example: I can act the part of myself, trapped here, as I am, trapped into submission by my children. I can act the part of myself trapped into submission, _not _secretly helping the Rebellion.

Because who would ever expect it of the pretty little Padmé doll?

Anakin should.

Palpatine should.

They underestimate me, and it will be their downfall. They underestimate us all, and overestimate themselves: their power, their support.

They don't realize how much their government by terror is detested.

Now that I look back on it, however, it has been coming to this for a long time, pieces slipping slowly, separately, into place.

The Naboo War.

The Separatists- all of it orchestrated, of course, by Palpatine.

The Separatist threat gave us a government by terror of terror. And from there, it is a small matter indeed to eliminate the "of terror"- but doesn't it amount to the same thing?

I did my duty. I slipped into my clothes, woke the babies and fed them, told Anakin I was going to send a letter to my mother (which I was, it wasn't a lie, it just wasn't _all_ I was going to send) and left his quarters. Down to the main room, put my mother's letter in the box, walk down the hall, find the right place, slip the disc into an obscured niche in the wall.

The Emperor doesn't dream that any of his soldiers dare question him. They're all clones, of course, and he makes the mistake of thinking that this means that not one of them has the capacity to overcome his training, his very personality. But 'accidents' happen, if you will, accidents of the mind, aberrations in the thinking.

I don't know which clone trooper it is. But it gives me a great deal of hope, something that I have been sorely lacking.


	3. Silent Seditions

**A/N: I've abandoned this story again, I'm a horrible person! Oh, well. 'Least I'm not a Sith. **

**Disclaimer: George Lucas', not mine.**

My father used to say that we write our own stories. The problems come, though, when your story disagrees with someone else's, someone you've written into your story, someone who has written you into theirs. Then the stories complicate, merge, are edited, take on lives of their own and expel themselves, finally, into the world, so far altered from the story we originally planned as to be unrecognizable.

I've allowed Anakin and Palpatine to edit my story for far too long.

I walked down the antiseptic white hallway, leaving whispered rumors in my wake. Stars, I hate this place! Not only its sterility, its denial of humanity's existence, denial of the fact that – here, I smirked inwardly- their precious Emperor shits too, and it smells just as bad- but also, I hate the 'people.'

The officers, the ones that aren't clones, the butcher scumbags that chose this fascist killing and destruction of liberty and dignity without any embryonic coaxing or implanted predilection to it, but of their own free will.

They chose, of their free will, to destroy everyone else's.

I hate them! And in my mind I scream it with antipathy equal in volatility to what Anakin felt for the Tusken Raiders that killed his mother-_for the Jedi for the younglings for Obi-Wan for me- _

The officers look after me whenever I wander about my spacious prison, wondering.

Most of them weren't involved enough in politics to know who I was. Those who did know must understand it even less. Why, after all, would a Dark Lord of the Sith marry, if indeed he was going to marry, a Senator who had been one of the most outspoken critics of every tactic his leader supplied, during the later part of the war?

They don't understand why I am kept here, I and the twins (despite the secret love I still harbor for the spark of Anakin buried in Vader -that's why I still call him Anakin, even though he hates me for it-, if I had the chance, oh! I would be gone, and Luke and Leia with me, like thieves in the night, far far away from here!)

The lesser officers complain quietly amongst themselves; their wives and children aren't allowed here!

The others, I know, question my presence less than they do my loyalties. _They _know me, the higher-level officers, they were high-level officers of the Republic, when I was Queen, journeying to Coruscant for the first time.

I remember their faces, the skeptics. They didn't believe in a fourteen year old girl's ability to rule, to finesse, to delicately maneuver her way through the minefield of politics. They were proven wrong, then, they watched me oust a Chancellor- and now they watch me slip silently through the halls, a living ghost, never speaking above a murmur.

Mustn't they wonder what has changed?

…

I returned from my act of sedition to ready myself to eat with the Emperor. Well, to _dine_ with. I'd _eat_ afterwards, really; I knew I'd never be able to force food down my throat in front of that bastard.

It wasn't his horribly disfigured face, in fact I preferred that face, perversely, to his old one, the face of he man who'd pretended friendship, counsellorship, who'd been like a second father to me when I was younger- who had then betrayed me, like so many others.

Anakin was still pacing when I came back. I set my features into a meaningless smile, unchanging; but his look of relief at my return did not escape me. I still had some measure of- power, was that what it had come to?- in this relationship. The thought did little to lift my spirits.

He came over and kissed me, for obscure reasons. I stood, passive; this scene I could not act.

"Padmé," he whispered, "what's wrong?"

I made my eyes wide, my face worried.

"I'm frightened of what the Emperor wants," I said, in a scared, small voice, the girl's voice that I'd used as Queen and Senator when faced with skeptics, in a sarcastic way, though. Quite unlike now.

But I fooled Anakin.

"Don't worry, angel," he said. "It's nothing bad- not for us." _Does that mean it's bad for someone else? _I thought, but I didn't say it. I let him hold me, limp and doll-like.

Is this what they mean when they say a woman sacrifices herself for her family?

Somehow, I sincerely doubt it.


	4. Ignorance is Bliss

**A/N: Okay, yeah, I suck for abandoning this story _again_. Wow, SNL's funny. Heehee. **

**Disclaimer: It's not mine…sadly.**

Silence. The harsh silvery clanking of eating utensils against plates the only noise.

I moved the food on my plate around idly with my fork, daydreaming about stabbing the fork right into Palpatine's black, atrophied heart, if he even had one. Palpatine stared at me, his veiny yellow eyes burning into me out of his purple face. I was sure he could tell what I was thinking, so I quickly glanced down at my plate and tried to clear my mind of thoughts as I'd been doing for a year. But this time, I couldn't bite back the swelling tide of rage that formed behind my eyes every time I looked at the monster who had created this hell out of my life. _People are not toys, to be played with, nor are they gamepieces, to be moved and manipulated for your own gain! _I wanted to scream at him. He looked at me, and I knew he felt my anger through the Force because of the twisted, broken, horrible facsimile of a smile that found purchase on his face.

"You say your wife is perfectly compliant to the Empire in thought and deed," he observed neutrally to Anakin.

"Thought crimes are not punishable, _Chancellor,_" I said icily, furious with him for addressing Anakin rather than me, as if I were incapable of answering his charge. The title and the tone I used slipped naturally from my lips before I could check it.

"But not addressing me by my proper title is," he responded.

"Oh, but I am addressing you by your _proper, legal, right_ title," I protested calmly.

"You are incorrect," he informed me.

"I am _not_," I said fiercely. Anakin was held helpless, which I enjoyed seeing, for once. Our positions were reversed; he was held silent and I could speak. "You did not pass it as a resolution, you merely-"

"No one objected, everyone voted for it." He glared at her. "_You _did, too, as I remember."

"And the armed guards standing at every exit were what, decoration?" I burst out.

"They were protection," he said.

"Protection from what! The _fake _Separatist threat that _you _orchestrated? The Jedi that were trying to defend the Republic and democracy from your evil, you Sith Lord!" I was standing now, screaming; he was cold and calm, Anakin was staring at me, horrified, furious, openmouthed, frozen. "And for your information, had I not been pregnant, I _would not _have voted for you, no matter what anyone else said!"

"What would your pregnancy have to do with anything?" asked Palpatine. He tried for his old tone, his fatherly, benevolent tone, but it wasn't cutting any ice. Not anymore.

"Your damned armed guards might have _killed _me! And for myself, I wouldn't have cared- democracy is more important than I am- but for my children, I did care- I couldn't do it!" My knife was clutched in my hand; I hadn't even realized it was there. Palpatine had, however.

"Lord Vader," he said calmly, "control your wife."

"Shut _up_," I said to Palpatine, "you chauvinist-"

"Lord _Vader_," said Palpatine again, "_now_." Anakin stood up, and tried to grab me. I slapped him across the face.

"You _puppet_," I told him, crying now, "you- you- _liar_, you betrayer, you-" Anakin slapped me back. Hysterical, I began to scream incoherently. Through the fog of chaos in my mind, I heard Palpatine's voice yelling, "Guards, guards!" and Anakin, screaming, "Bring a tranquilizer!" But these words weren't connected to me, nothing was connected to me anymore, not even my body, I was flying and floating as far as my piercing scream could reach- until I felt something cold and alien slip through my skin and into my vein, and the tranquilizer became a silvery liquid leash, dragging me back down into myself and rooting me there, where Anakin was holding my arms behind my back, and my knees were buckling and my head was clouding over and my eyes were closing and I was falling, falling, falling into black darkness and with the last bit of coherence and strength, I whispered, "Anakin, I'm sorry," because I was, for yelling at Palpatine without airing my grievances to him first, like I probably should have, for putting my children and maybe even him in jeopardy, who knew, for losing my temper instead of staying calm like I'd been trained, for not seeing the changes in him, before, and trying to stop it, for not consoling him enough after his nightmare, for not seeing through Palpatine before- and then everything went black.

…

I woke up in a room that was all white. At first I'd thought I'd been locked up in a holding cell, but as consciousness returned to me, I realized I was in the infirmary, where I'd actually had my children. I struggled to sit up, but I couldn't even move- durasteel cuffs locked my hands and feet to the bed, and one even covered my neck. I was completely immobile. Fear began to flood me, instinctively; not being able to have _control_, self-custody, had always been one of my fears. I opened my mouth and screamed, even though my throat hurt. A medical droid came over to me and began to ready another tranquilizer injection.

"_No_," I told it firmly. "That is _not _what I want. Do _not _put that in my arm. Kindly either unlock me or call my husband here, _now_. Go look in the records, then, you worthless thing, and get him down here _now_!" Thankfully, the droid obeyed.

Anakin arrived a few minutes later, blue eyes filled with fire, anger evident in his tense movements.

"What the hell is _wrong _with you?" he demanded.

"If individualism and advocating democracy are wrong-" I began. Anakin rolled his eyes.

"You don't seem to _get _it," he said. "You just insulted the _Emperor_. He could kill you, and he almost did. You are _damned _lucky I'm close enough to him to have stopped him."

"I'd rather be dead than immobile," I told him. "And besides, I thought it was 'there is no death, there is the Force.'" I was taunting him now, unwisely, seeing as how I couldn't move. His mouth twitched. Unexpectedly, he smiled, a genuine smile, and he laughed. I laughed too, along with him, but the joy of his being _him_, for a moment, of the real Anakin surfacing, was accompanied by a twisted pain, an ache of longing for what used to be.

Ignorance is bliss.

And so, for so long, for so many people, very nearly the entire galaxy- it was.


End file.
